I was just at the Verizon store and came across these two neat items.

The first item is an HP netbook that has Verizon Wireless internet service built in it (it also has regular WiFi access, too). It’s a nice little machine running XP with a gig of memory, an 80gig hard drive, an Intel® Atom™ N270 1.6ghz processor, and a built in webcam. I got to play with it a little bit and it and it was snappy enough to run the the Ajax based wed mail from Nomad Email. (I got to handle a bunch of my email while waiting for the next salesperson, whohoo!)The machine costs $200, which is pretty good. I saw a comparable machine at Wal*Mart for $350. The internet access will run $60/month for 5gigs of transfer. If you don’t use cellular internet access, that might seem steep, but for those of us who’s jobs require us to be connected to the internet at any given time, it’s a bargain. For comparison, my highest usage so far for my Verizon Wireless PC card is about 3gigs a month.

The Netbook seems to have all the standard connections, two USB ports, headphone, ethernet and a card reader. It does not have a standard VGA output socket, but there’s a mystery socket on the left side that from my understanding is where an adapter can be plugged in to allow the use of an external monitor.

For people on the go, this could be quite a handy tool. If you can hook it to a regular size monitor and keyboard for desk usage, I think it could quite a handy machine. I’ll seriously look at one of these when my current laptop becomes unusable.

You can learn more about the HP Mini 1151NR Netbook at Verzion’s site. Now superseded by the HP Mini 110-3098NR Netbook (2/20/2011).

The second item is really interesting. I think the target audience for it is going to be fairly narrow, but for those who can use it, it’s a stroke of genius.  It’s a 5 user portable wireless hotspot using Verizon Wireless’ internet service. It’s about the size of a deck of cards and has a power button, USB port, and charging port. Think of it, just by carrying around this device, you can be your own roving WiFi hotspot, you’ll find friends you didn’t know you had! I’ve got a frield who runs an airport shuttle service, this will be a perfect service for him to offer to his corporate customers.

The device costs $100 and it is also $60 a month for 5gigs of transfer. (5 cents a meg thereafter.) if you regularly have multiple people using it at the same time, I could see chewing through that 5gigs pretty quickly (Oh, where did Verizon’s unlimited plans go?)

Does anybody have one of these? I’d like to know how you’re using them. I’m especially interested if you’re using one of these to generate income.

You can learn more about the MiFi™2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot at Verizon’s site.

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©2009 The Business Identity Factory. All Rights Reserved.
http://BusinessIdentityFactory.com
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If you liked this article, we'd love for you to share it, post it on your site or blog, or even use it in your newsletter. All we ask is that you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. All the links must remain in this article.

© 2009 The Business Identity Factory. All Rights Reserved.
http://BusinessIdentityFactory.com
"Helping businesses define and express their brand"